


everyone needs a place (it shouldn't be inside someone else)

by spiekiel



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Drift Bond, Drift Side Effects, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-13
Updated: 2013-10-13
Packaged: 2017-12-29 06:46:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1002226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiekiel/pseuds/spiekiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His brain goes a gazillion miles an hour in loopy misdirectional circles, and when he dreams he dreams of kaiju biology, of being back in their lab, of sharp elbows in a small bed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everyone needs a place (it shouldn't be inside someone else)

 

The first time Newt fell in love, it was slow.  Her name was Christine, but she went by Kristy with a K, and she played bass in a girl band, had more tattoos than he did, all the way up her legs and swirling around her hips and ass like an invitation.  She laughed when he sang to her and he thought she was happy, maybe, because the way her nose crinkled around the stud in its side was all-natural, honest.

 

He was seventeen, fresh out of high school, and she played bass for him shirtless after they had sex, the tips of her tits vibrating in time with the music - really, he never had a shot.  Six weeks in and he asked her to marry him, had the question tattooed across his chest so that when she had him pressed up against the wall of his dorm, pulled his shirt up with her teeth she came face-to-face with it, had no where to go.

 

People don't ask him why he has _marry me_ on his left pec anymore - he had it turned into a kaiju, colored over with green ink.  If squints hard enough at his own reflection he can still make the words out, kind of, but they're faded, they just look like odd scales.

 

&

 

Sometimes - even before the drift - Newt thinks Hermann understands him differently than every one else on earth.  Not _better_ , per se, but like -

 

Newt's best friend in middle school was called Jimmy and he knew all Newt's secrets, knew how he only liked to sing because he thought maybe if he got famous his mom would come back, knew how he really liked picking frogs apart but couldn't tell his gentle-minded musician of a father, knew how maybe Newt was a little bit gay, sometimes.  Jimmy knew and he stayed; maybe he just never had the energy to run, Newt thinks - 

 

And his uncle Gunther, who taught him how things worked and let him drink more coffee than he should have been allowed to at age eight, who helped him transfer from UCLA to MIT after his live-fast-die-young music career crashed and burned, who caught him necking with Jimmy in ninth grade and took it upon himself to be Newt's condom supplier.

 

Hermann takes one look at Newt and decides he understands him completely.  Which he does, in a way - they hurl insults and xeno-bodily fluids and bits of chalk, but they're both essentially the same, both insane in a way that people who aren't will never understand, both emotionally constipated in a base full of idiots who care too much -

 

&

 

When he falls in love with Hermann, it's fast, it's _booyah_ , it's _geronimo,_ it's the bang bang without the kiss kiss.

 

&

 

Then they drift, and for Newt it's like waking up from a bad dream he didn't know he was having.  It's like discovering a new species of tree frog that's bigger on the inside, because _what the fuck_ , Hermann is closer to him than anyone and still there are these quirks, complexities and mysteries he _never_ would have guessed.

 

Like, Hermann was hit by a car when he was nine, riding his bike home from school, and the lower portion of his spine was just _wrecked,_ but Newt could probably fix that - like, Hermann has three siblings, but he always kind of wished he had four so he could be the middle child, so he could have his round numbers.  

 

Hermann loves meticulously, Newt knows, weighs all the pros and cons and possible outcomes before he commits himself to a relationship, and it's not because he was hurt once, it's just because that's how he _is,_ how he's always been.  He kisses with his eyes squeezed shut like he's worried he got his math wrong; he sleeps in boxers and a tee shirt, cuts his own hair once a month, wishes he could sleep flat on his back, could be just as in-control when he's asleep as he is awake, and - 

 

Newt's close already - too close for comfort - but he never could have guessed how much closer he'd want to be, how much he'd want to pull at Hermann's stupid hair and wrap himself up in those gangly limbs and press his face into every thoroughly-calculated corner of him, take note of every imperfection.

 

The drift is like coming home, it's like revving a Ferrari, it's like a private concert with his favorite band and he doesn't even care that it's quiet because it's so _overwhelming_ - 

 

& 

 

"So," he says, afterwards, after they've cancelled the apocalypse.  "You have a kid."

 

He doesn't have to ask because he already knows the answer, but he's hoping maybe Hermann will offer some sort of explanation, some sort of excuse; but his colleague just looks up from the stack of papers he's sorting through, nods, and returns.

 

Newt rolls his eyes, sighs loud enough to be heard across the lab.  "And a wife," he prompts, more deliberately, and it should bug him but it doesn't, not really - 

 

Hermann nods without looking up from his work, his brow furrowed, and Newt wants to shake him, yell, wants to drop to his knees and suck him until he forgets her name, but - 

 

"So what's her name?"

 

Hermann glances up, looking as though he's deeply annoyed by the entire conversation, and replies, "Vanessa."

 

"Vanessa," Newt parrots, and the name feels gross, too-sharp on his tongue, like he needs to spit it out, fold it in a napkin and feed it to the dog like he used to do with broccoli.  "Vanessa Gottlieb.  Weird."  

 

Hermann shoots him a glare.  "Weird," he repeats flatly.  "My wife's name is strange to you?"

 

Newt snorts and kicks his feet up on the never-before-seen surface of his desk, wiped down except for a shock-stain of blue kaiju blood in the middle, because apparently that stuff doesn't come out with normal cleaner, which maybe he never noticed before because he always has some on him, old or new or who the hell knows.  "Yeah, man - her whole existence is strange.  You might've mentioned, you know, that's kind of a big thing - "

 

"It was never relevant," Hermann interrupts abruptly, and he shifts his weight in a way that Newt knows now is not actual physical discomfort but a preemptive move to stop the muscles from stiffening.  "We weren't socializing, Newton, we were preventing the end of the world - "

 

"I've basically spent every waking moment with you since I got here, Hermann - I told you about Kristy, for fuck's sake, and you couldn't tell me about your _successful_ marriage - "

 

"Just because _your_ life is an open book - "

 

Newt makes an ugly noise in the back of his throat.  "Don't pull that high-and-mighty schtick with me, man - I know for a fact you're not above regular human emotion, now - "

 

Hermann slams his palms down on top of the stack of papers so hard his cane rattles from where it's been leaned against his desk to the floor, out of reach but Newt knows he can walk without it if he really puts his mind to it.  "My family was never any of your business, Newton - "

 

"Well they are now, babydoll, like it or not.  We drifted.  You're stuck with me."

 

Hermann's mouth twists in what might be a smile and might be a snarl, depending on the lighting and how much you squint, what angle you turn your head at.  "Not necessarily."

 

And Newt wants to recoil at that, wants to fling some kaiju bits at Hermann's blackboard but the kaijus are in jars and the blackboard is packed up and he always leaves things like this - messy, unfinished.  

 

&

 

MIT offers him his old teaching position back and he goes without a second thought.  Maybe it's because it's convenient - because it puts an ocean between him and the PPDC, an ocean between him and Germany and Hermann - but probably it's because he doesn't know where home is anymore, and where home used to be is as good a place as any to start looking.

 

There's a lot of press to do, and as the only member of the team living in the United States, Newt's pretty sure he gets the worst of it, the paparazzi-flash in his eyes and the empty chatter of endless charity galas stuck in the curves of his ear because he hasn't had a chance to blast AC/DC in weeks.  It's the closest he's ever come to being a rockstar, and there's still a part of him that wants to get up in the camera and say _look at me now, mom, look at what I did without you_ , say _Hermann, where the fuck have you disappeared to._

 

Because Hermann more than anyone manages to avoid the press, and that might be because he's not camera-friendly, can't smile a million-dollar smile like Newt and Raleigh and Mako can, but probably it's because he's hiding himself away, _his family is none of your business._

 

&

 

Newt falls hard and fast, and being without Hermann is like being without his right hand, his lungs, his skin - he feels raw, can't breathe, can't function properly.

 

His brain goes a gazillion miles an hour in loopy misdirectional circles, and when he dreams he dreams of kaiju biology, of being back in their lab, of sharp elbows in a small bed.

 

&

 

Newt cracks.  

 

He hasn't talked to anyone with an iota of intelligence in going on two months, and he doesn't know when MIT undergrads got so stupid but _fuck_ they're dumb, and he keeps expecting to hear a cane tapping away at the steps down from the entrance to his lecture hall but he never does, and Mako and Raleigh just bought a puppy and Herc's clinically depressed and Tendo's basically a pimp now - 

 

So he cracks hard, eats three pizzas like maybe they'll fill up that empty spot in his _everywhere_ , grabs a sixpack of beer and sits down to watch old footage of the kaiju attacks, because they usually make him feel better, or at least tide him over until he gets rip-roaring drunk and starts grading papers.

 

The footage cycles into a publicity tour of the Shatterdome, the B-roll that someone managed to get their hands on after the news crew left, and it's Stacker yelling at them - him and Hermann - to quit arguing long enough to smile at the camera, win him some public approval points.  Then it cuts forward, and it's Newt with his arm around his colleague, grinning big while Hermann shuffles awkwardly next to him, taller than him but somehow smaller, his own smile barely-there at the corners of his mouth.

 

Newt takes a long tug at his beer, reclined on the couch in his tightie-whities and his oversized Rolling Stones shirt.  Somehow a phone shows up in his hand, and he's dialing while Hermann on-screen slips out from under his arm and skitters off, listening to it ring while Stacker clobbers his way back into frame and starts verbally abusing Newt even though he's done _nothing wrong -_

 

"Hallo?"  

 

And that alone feels like it might break him, like it might burrow down into his soul until he cracks and starts singing, _belting_ his rage, his _I love you, marry me_ all over again.

 

"Hey, man, it's Newt," he says, forces it up out of his throat before something life-wrecking can claw its way out.  "How's things in Berlin?"

 

"Newton?" Hermann says, and Newt wants to curl up in his voice, wants to hear what he sounds like while he's coming.  "How did you get my home number?"

 

Newt laughs around the mouth of his Budweiser, "I guess I must've just remembered it after the drift.  I probably know where you live, too - I could drop by and visit - "

 

"I'm sure you're far too busy to visit me," says Hermann, in a way that suggests to Newt he would be unwelcome even if he managed to find his way over there - and it's not as if he hasn't considered it recently, "and my home is the equivalent of a battlefield at the moment, as it is - "

 

"Trouble in paradise?" asks Newt, and it comes out kind of douchey, doesn't it, but he's feeling kind of douchey at the moment so whatever.

 

It's a sure measure of how long they've been apart that Hermann doesn't snap at him, just sighs and answers, "Yes.  Vanessa and I are...in quite an argument."  

 

Newt stamps down a rogue wave of hopefulness, because _jerk_ that's his best friend, his favorite person on the planet and all he wants is for him to be happy, really - except sometimes (all the time) he wants to be happy, too, and he can't see that happening without Hermann.  "That's rough, man," he says, and looks away from the television, because his favorite kaiju just came on and he's not gonna cry, damnit.  "What're you fighting about?"

 

Hermann makes that chuffing noise in the back of his throat that he used to use to convey annoyance, "Custody of our daughter."  

 

Newt's eyebrows go up so fast he's pretty sure they leave his forehead.  "I'd say that's quite an argument," he's smiling, but he hopes it doesn't sound like it, even though it probably does - he's a very emotive person, his eyes and his hands and his voice - 

 

"My wife has had considerable trouble adjusting to the fact that I'm not halfway around the world," Hermann continues, and Newt can't remember him ever being this talkative about his personal life before, "seeing as she can no longer spend her evenings with my old research partner, with whom she seems to have grown rather familiar in my absence."

 

Newt thinks of Vanessa, the way he saw her in the drift - beautiful, Italian, holding a baby girl and wearing a tired smile, wrapped up in Hermann's arms with his lips against her hair.  "She cheated on you?" he asks, quietly, like maybe the volume will mask his elation.

 

Hermann doesn't respond, but Newt can hear him on the other end of the line, breathing in and out through his nose, the noise of the city constant in the distance.  

 

Newt looks down at his shirt, at the lips-and-tongue emblazoned across the front, the dark tattoos across his torso visible through the white linen; the whole thing is rendered practically transluscent by the flashing light from the television, and he imagines that he can see right through himself, all the way to the couch cushions.

 

"So, uh," he starts, and there are a million things that he wants to say, but none of them feel right, none of them feel appropriate.  "What's she like?"

 

"Who? Vanessa?"

 

"No, no," says Newt.  "Your daughter.  Emma, right?"

 

"Yes, Emma," says Hermann, and Newt can hear his smile, and he _aches._   "She's wonderful, absolutely lovely.  She's two, now, and she's recently started walking - all over the place, she can't seem to slow down.  Must get it from her mother."

 

Newt chuckles, imagining Hermann hobbling along after a million-mile-an-hour toddler, grumbling good naturely like the stair she just tripped over was a simple addition mistake, a one-plus-two-equals-five.  "I'd love to meet her, man," it slips out before he can stop it.

 

But Hermann just laughs gently, and it's not even patronizing.  Newt feels his smile press back against his cheeks, and it hurts but he doesn't smile too much these days, not genuinely.  "I would love for you to meet her, Newton, truly," Hermann says, but then there's: "But you really should not.  It's too... _delicate_ of a situation at the moment."

 

"Right," says Newt, and it's a good thing there's only a category three kaiju on screen right now because he's feeling pretty fucking emotionally delicate.  "Custody battle, and all."

 

"I'm glad you called, though," Hermann's voice is too distant - like it's fading away, and Newt wants to pull it back, because his ears ring without it.  "It...it really has been too long."

 

"Yeah," Newt agrees, but it still feels too long, like he needs to stretch out and _touch -_

 

&

 

He waits to fall out of love - waits for the distance and the time and the alcohol and the tinny quality that voices adopt over phone lines to overpower the thrilled, bereft whapping of his heart.

 

Mako smiles sadly at him, backstage before they go on for an interview with CNN.  "It doesn't work like that, Newt."  

 

&

 

Newt loves Boston more than he ever loved Los Angeles - maybe because it's more his native climate (smart people and musicians and normal people all mixed together in one big urban planning nightmare).

 

He loved Los Angeles more than he ever loved Philly, but that might've been because in LA he was free for the first time, out from under the constant worry of disappointing his father, his absentee mother.

 

He loved Philly more than he loved Berlin because - well - he didn't really remember Berlin.

 

He thinks he'd love Berlin now, more than Boston and more than LA and more than Philly and more than the fucking Hong Kong Shatterdome.

 

Newt doesn't have a place anymore - not without that infuriating doofus of a mathematician topped off with a bad haircut and a personality verging on bipolar and - 

 

&

 

He watches _Die Hard_ , and _Godzilla_ , and then all nine _Fast and Furious_ movies.  He goes to see Led Zeppelin in holo-concert, sleeps with his old bio lab professor, learns to skydive.

 

Nothing works.  He didn't think it would.

 

&

 

"It's a side effect of the drift," he's saying, his voice amplified by the microphone clipped to his shirt collar, "intense personal and emotional attachment."

 

A student in the front row raises his hand.  He's a grade monger, only speaks for the participation score, but Newt gestures to him - 

 

"Can't the attachment be physical, too, Doctor Geiszler? I read in one of your papers - "

 

"Drift partners don't _physically_ attach to each other, no," Newt interrupts, and gets a laugh from the mostly-full lecture hall.  "But a physical relationship does occasionally develop, for instance: in the case of the Kaidonovskys."

 

He's set to move on, but the grade monger goes, "And, uh, sir - " stops himself, raises his hand.  Newt nods at him, and then it's, "You mentioned a phantom ache, in that paper, and I was hoping you could clarify that for us - "

 

"Right, well, that's just a theory," Newt explains, waving his hands elaborately, "that when two drift partners with a strong bond are separated, either because one dies or they have to be different places or whatever, that they get a phantom ache - similar to what amputees experience."

 

He hops back in front of his podium and taps a few keys on his laptop to produce a holographic diagram of what looks for all the world like one of those hippie chakra things but is actually a map of metaphysically significant nerve endings.  "Even though their drift partner isn't _actually_ a part of their body, certain Jaeger pilots reported feeling like they were missing limbs or internal organs - they just felt _off,_ like parts of them were just... _gone_."

 

"Have you experienced this, sir?" the front-row student asks.  "I heard that you drifted with Doctor Gottlieb during the last kaiju attack, and he's teaching at Freie Universität in Berlin - "

 

"No, no," Newt dismisses, except really the answer is _yes, yes, every day_ and it _hurts_.  "We weren't really drift compatible, it was just a convenience thing, so there was no attachment."

 

Lies.  _Lies,_ all of it.

 

&

 

Herc comes to Boston for coffee, and he brings Max, which is kind of impressive given that it's a twenty-some hour flight from Sydney, and neither of them - him and the dog - like sitting still very much.

 

He and Newt both take their coffee black - _like real men,_ Uncle Gunther used to tell him.  Newt orders two, by accident, one with cream and sugar for someone who's not there.  He leaves it on the counter because he's kind of embarrassed, honestly, and this is his Monday-morning Starbucks, so he's going to have to come back here - 

 

Herc looks at him long and hard across the table, in that unnerving, unwavering way that he has.  "Just be thankful yours is alive, please," he says, voice strained like he has a headache that doesn't go away.  "You still have the chance to make things right."

 

Newt burns his tongue, coughs, and somewhere in the middle manages to say, "I didn't know things were wrong."

 

But he grabs the extra coffee on his way out, the one marked _Hermann,_ and drinks the entire disgusting cup just to prove a point.

 

&

 

He thinks he deserves a medal, considering how long he actually lasts before caving and buying a plane ticket.

 

&

 

"I'm - ah - sorry to show up unannounced like this," Hermann says, and bless his soul he actually looks apologetic, like Newt's not fighting an over-the-moon heart attack at the sight of him in the hall of his apartment building.  "But I wasn't sure I would be welcome."

 

Newt somehow manages to laugh without smiling.  "Of course you're welcome, man - I mean, I was just about to - " he gestures to his suitcase, pushed against the wall inside the door of his place - "but - "

 

Hermann looks down at the suitcase, adds one plus one and gets three, of course, because his math is perfect except when it actually matters, like _now,_ like a couple months ago.  "Well I see that you're busy, so I'll just come back later - "

 

"Don't be ridiculous, Hermann, come in - you'll be saving me a thousand bucks or so."  Newt steps aside to give Hermann space to shuffle past him through the door, and if he stands a little closer than he needs to it's only because he _craves_ \- craves the heat of him, his smell, the clench-unclench thing that his jawbone does when he's uncomfortable, trying not to say something he feels needs to be said.

 

"How on earth am I saving you money?" Hermann asks, the moment he's comfortably inside and glowering around Newt's cluttered kitchen like the lack of organization is causing him physical distress.

 

Newt's going through an awkward wrestle with his bag to try to get the door shut, and it's probably more of a struggle than it should be considering the complete and utter loss of concentration and hand-eye coordination that he's currently experiencing.  "I was on my way to the airport, actually, to get on a flight to Berlin." 

 

Hermann's leaning heavily on his cane, and Newt's never seen his leg this bad before, stiff and at an awkward angle like he can't bear to put any weight on it.  "I see," he says, staring resolutely at the linoleum, and Newt can't tell what it is that he's angry about - the fake tile or _what -_

 

"You should know that my address has changed, then, if you're planning on visiting," his voice is flat, deliberately so, and Newt jiggles the door a final time and manages to shut it.  "I - ah - I lost the house in the divorce, but I did finally get that old flat I've had my eye on, the one on the riverfront."

 

Newt steps into the kitchen, but there's still this distance, like Hermann's managed to draw a line - _his side -_ after having been in Newt's apartment for all of two minutes.

 

"What happened with the custody?" Newt asks, completely indelicately, and it's kind of refreshing because it feels like he's had a brain-to-mouth filter on for ages, and he hates it - 

 

Hermann winces, his lips pinched down at the edges, and Newt knows his answer before he gives it; "Vanessa has custody," he says, "but I was granted visitation rights, and I have Emma every-other week-end, so it wasn't an unmitigated failure."

 

"Still," Newt says, "that's rough, having to conform like that - "

 

Hermann takes a step forward, and whatever Newt was about to say - he can't remember, it wasn't important, not like the way he wants to reach out and push Hermann's hair away from his face, not like the way Hermann's just a bit taller than him and skinny, and _what would it feel like -_

 

"The drift," Hermann says, and all thought of making polite conversation and playing catch-up are dashed from Newt's mind.  "I do believe that you and I must have been drift-compatible, for it to have effected us in the way that it has - "

 

Newt smiles, laughs, because what a _relief._ "Dude, I know, I've been listening to _Wild Horses_ on repeat for like the past month - "

 

"I've no idea what that means, Newton, you'll have to explain yourself _in English,_ please - "

 

"It means that that theory," Newt's babbling but he can't help it, can't help punctuating his speech enthusiastically with his hands, "the one about phantom aches and physical attachments and all that other stuff, too, all the emotional shit and _all of it_ , it's not just a theory anymore, and we probably should have recorded it or something so that we could publish, but - "

 

Newt takes a deep breath, because Hermann is watching him like he's gone insane, like he's a disaster and he just can't look away.  "Look, man, all I know is that it _hurts_ for you to be all the way across the Atlantic.  I hate you sometimes but you're like the closest thing I have to - I don't even know what - and I know everything about you, even when I want to forget it."  

 

He gestures between them with his hands, like he can point to the drift, to what the fucking tangible connection that it established between them.  "I used to think that I should move back to Hong Kong, but it wasn't that, it wasn't the city, was it - it was _you_ , wherever you were, and now you're in my kitchen and it still feels like you're a million miles away - "

 

Hermann plants his cane right by Newt's foot, and it's not deliberate but it's a close thing to a broken toe, only Newt couldn't care less because Hermann does his best to seize him by the lapels of his _Godzilla_ tee-shirt, then misjudges the distance and manages to kiss him mostly on the chin.

 

Newt smiles but he doesn't laugh, not when he can remember in vivid Technicolor the way Hermann screws his eyes shut and _prays_ at times like these - instead, he grabs him by the back of the head and fumbles around until his lips are in the right spot, and it's sloppy but it's the best Newt's felt _ever_ and it's even better because - 

 

Hermann drops his cane, and then he's got an arm wrapped around Newt's shoulders and somehow they're pressed into the corner of the kitchen counter, and Hermann's hip fits snugly in Newt's hand - _fuck_ he's thin.  

 

He gasps Hermann's lower lip into his mouth, and Hermann _moans_ deep in his chest, and it goes straight to Newt's dick, and damn if this uncoordinated, ungainly goof under his hands isn't the sexiest thing to walk the earth.  Hermann's left hand has found its way under Newt's shirt, and if Newt's a little softer around the edges he doesn't seem to notice, just digs in and pulls Newt flush against him, so close his glasses are riding up on Hermann's nose - 

 

&

 

There are a lot of things Newt never would have guessed.

 

Like, Hermann sleeps sprawled out on his back with his arms and legs tangled up in the covers, tangled up in Newt, and he hates that he does - hates that his subconscious mind isn't as meticulously organized as the conscious.  Like - 

 

He rolls over, inhales against Newt's shoulder, his eyes half-closed, mouth a blissed-out gaping line, still sucked-red, and he knows all of Newt's secrets, like how the kaiju on his chest really says _marry me_ , and he's the greatest puzzle Newt's ever encountered, he'll never be able to pick him apart and figure out all the pieces - _never._  

 

&

 

Hermann says _I love you_ , and it's fast but it's _booyah,_ it's _geronimo,_ it's the kiss kiss without the bang bang.

 

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from a Richard Siken poem


End file.
